Last year, I had a really cool experience and one of my first as a travel agent. My agency sent me on my first FAM (familiarization) trip. It’s a special trip just for travel agents where the trip is more directed to help you sell the destination, tour, resort, cruise, etc… better than you had been. They want you to be able to CORRECTLY sell them. Not just sell them to everyone. Every vendor might not be right for every traveler, so this is the chance you have to experience it for yourself and see which client would be the best fit.
In this case, I went with the Karisma hotel group in Mexico’s Riviera Maya. They are definitely more of a mid-luxury brand and not everyone would fit to go there, but now that I’ve experienced them, I know who I can offer it to.
We were hosted at the Fives Azul Beach Resort in Playa del Carmen. It’s a family friendly resort that is absolutely beautiful. Their main focus is making sure that what you experience there, invokes your five senses! The food was amazing, and the accommodations were huge!
Our first night, we went to visit one of their other properties for a site inspection, which I get to stay at this October, so just wait for all of those pictures and updates to hit my blog! It’s called the El Dorado Seaside Suites. They have two sides of this massive resort, the Palms and the Infinity Sections. One is surrounded by nature, and the other has all of it’s room categories with a swim-up pool, including the balconies. We also visited the spa and got to experience a Mayan cleansing session. It was so cool! We kept going around to visit the rest of the property before going back to the Fives.
As soon as we got back, they had a cocktail party at the penthouse for us. They even made us a special Guava Margarita and has us guess the ingredients. The Guava slice had been lit on fire and even had a cinnamon stick in it. It was so good. Maybe too good. After we all went out to eat together and the food was so good.
The next day we went on a site inspection of the Fives and then they set up a scavenger hunt for us right after. It was of course based on our five senses. We had to guess some of the smells used at the spa, and answer some trivia questions about the resort, because after all, this was still work! At one point, we were at the beach, and they hid an apple in the sand, blindfolded me, and my teammates had to tell me where to dig. I had to do this all the while my future BDM (business development manager) for my region tried to get me to go in the opposite direction (and if you’re reading this: yeah that’s right I remember that)! All in good fun. Our team won the competition because we did the scavenger hunt the fastest!
Later that afternoon, we went to the Azul Beach Riviera Cancun resort. This one is only a few miles from the airport, so a great short ride, but a long one for us since we were about an hour away. The resort is massive and super family friendly. But the thing I remember most was going to one of the restaurants and the chefs making us a small little taste of what to expect if our clients ate a 30 course meal there. Yeah that’s right: 30+ courses. One for every state of Mexico that depicted the cuisine in that state. They change their menu all of the time, and the restaurant isn’t included, but it’s so worth it. I’m just sayin’… I had a cherry made out of white chocolate that was hollowed and filled with Tequila. So… worth it!
Then we went back to Playa del Carmen and went out for a tour of 5th Avenue. It was really cool. And just for all of you that worry about safety there, I never felt unsafe walking on the avenue. I even bought a street churro. Best I’ve ever had. We also walked by a restaurant and they invited us in because they wanted us to see their property. It was amazing because their back courtyard is literally situated on a cenote! If you don’t know what a cenote is, it’s a sinkhole with an underground pool or river that the Mayans believed was sacred and a portal to the underworld. The owner was so nice and gave us his card. Seriously, the people are so nice here!
Then we went back to the Fives and had dinner on our own and then went back to sleep to get ready for a super early morning!
We departed to see a new resort before it opened. It ‘s a wellness resort that had previously been a recording studio. It’s called Xolumado situated in the jungle with rooms in the form of a casita that really made it feel like you were living in a modern Mexican home. It was amazing. They then planned for us to do Yoga there. The instructor was amazing! He is from Chile and his method was more of just letting lose and letting your body take you where it wanted to go. This also include acting like a monkey and walking around the courtyard on our hands and feet. The area was in the middle of the jungle with palm trees and banana trees overhead. We mentioned it felt like Bali!
Then we went on to the next resorts, Generations, El Dorado Royale and El Dorado Casitas Royale. They are all on the same property but different sections and style of accommodations. It’s a really amazing beachfront resort where you can rent bikes to go around the resort too. The entrance to El Dorado Royal is amazing! And El Dorado Casitas is just perfect for weddings. Generations is so great for large families and family reunions. There was so much here I can’t even begin to tell you about it. We did have lunch here though, and they made the most amazing smoothies too!
After, they took us to Cancun because they partner with a foster home to give back to their community and they wanted us to see it. While normally I don’t agree with this because volun-tourism in a foster home can be very damaging to kids, I could tell that this wasn’t a thing that they did often. It was a one time thing. We toured the facility and what they did there for the kids. They even teach them martial arts for discipline. We got to play with the kids there too. One girl and I played dominoes. I don’t know any Spanish and she didn’t know any English so we were quiet most of the time, but we still had fun.
After that, we went back to the Fives and they tested out a new offering: a blind dinner. Yeah, you literally get blindfolded and they give you food and don’t tell you what it is. They play music and do other things like blow air in your face as a clue to what it is. They played the Tequila song one time and gave us gourmet tequila jello shots for desert. It was so much fun! But because it was a small dinner and we wanted to try this other restaurant, all of us and our guides went to a restaurant afterwards to try the pan-asian food. Obviously all of it was amazing. After, some of us went to see what the nightlife was like, but were so tired we stayed up until 11pm. I felt like an old lady!
Then it was time for our last day. We went to Azul Beach Riviera Maya, but first was classroom time. We did have to do some training in a classroom and they even bounced some ideas off of us that they were thinking about for the future to make the resort more technologically advanced. It was actually really great, but I needed so much more coffee for that.
,After, we took a tour of the resort and I found out that the sales manager from the resort grew up where I did: Greeley, Colorado! During lunch, which was an octopus salad, we talked forever about Colorado and how she hadn’t been back in so long and how much Colorado has changed. She was so sweet!
Then we went on to the last resort: El Dorado Maroma. This resort is just the most beautiful resort and (if you saw my instagram yesterday, it’s the resort pictured. But not only does it look like that, but they also have the only overwater bungalows in Mexico. It’s so beautiful, that words cant describe it!
After we toured the resort, they made us a special little goodbye dinner on the beach! It was so beautiful. They even hired a violin player! We had a special menu and it was so good. An experience I’ll remember forever! And then, just like that it was over and it was time to go home the next day!
It really was just one of the most amazing experiences I’ve ever had and I was so lucky to have been able to do it! And now you know part of what I do as a travel agent! ❤
Adventuresome Nicole 